"A child's learning is the function more of the characteristics of his classmates than those of the teacher." James Coleman, 1972

Saturday, August 23, 2014

What's It Worth to Jesse Register to Corporatize Nashville's Public Schools?

In June a corporate reform school outfit called STRIVE, which is headed by a former TFA cult member, had its application rejected unanimously by Metro's school board. With the help of CorpEd crony superintendent, Jesse Register, that all changed last week. From Joey Garrison at the Tennessean:

. . . .STRIVE, a middle school, is cleared to open next fall, joining five other new charters already approved.

Pinkston attacked Register’s leadership on the issue. He read a litany of concerns the administration cited with STRIVE’s application before its original rejection in June, shortcomings school officials said STRIVE has since addressed.

Pinkston also noted that last fall Register and Alan Coverstone, who oversees charters for Metro Nashville Public Schools, helped draft the very set of charter priorities that STRIVE — which he called a “recalcitrant operator” — ignored. He wondered aloud what had changed between then and today:

“I suspect what it was. But I’m not going to cast aspersions today. I’ll wait for another day.”

Frogge and Speering questioned the precedent of setting aside priorities the board had passed via resolution. Frogge went further, contending that by “disregarding” them, the administration had disrespected the board.

“I’ll just add on a personal note, really, this entire process has felt very dishonest to me,” Frogge said. “I’ve lost trust in our administrators.” . . . .